


Nethicite and You

by korik



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Body Modification, Gen, Medical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korik/pseuds/korik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imbibing nethicite, willingly or not, is always a tricky process. I wrote this at work. Big surprise. Ages, ago, however, more than a year ago. So, we’ll see how it holds up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nethicite and You

There was a rattling gasp.

Blue eyes shattered into unbidden grief. “In the name of Faram, it hurts…!" His fingers grasped at his chest, face a jagged minefield of barely restrained sound.

The other man laughed, adjusting delicate frames upon his face gone, a wry, too pleased smile, escaping. “Ahh, but a lesser man would’ve screamed, Vayne."

A bitter, choked sneer, the gash of his mouth curling. “Were I a lesser man, Cid, I would not tolerate such deviant pleasure."

The merry smile glimmered, altered, and maintained itself against the subtle crash. “I count myself ardently lucky you are not."

A stiff grunt from deep within is the response. Too focused, too lost as the spasms start, ripping through his frame with deadly vengeance. His voice is ripped from him anyway - “One of your…more inventive procedures; Bergen endured, did he?"

An affirming, genteel nod. “Aye, that he did, performed most splendidly until his untimely end, really."

A wheezed, milky laugh. “Bergan would enjoy the act that is so akin to Belias fornicating with one’s skull…"

The returned laugh is merry, eyes gleaming. “Odd, I’d’ve never pegged him for a masochist."

Chipped laughter, falling apart as though struck, breath swallowed up in unexpressed shivers. “One must…a-always be open -" his throat constricts; a whimper - “t-t-to the possibilities…your own words s-sh-should you choose to recall them…"

"Vayne - Vayne Solidor! _Boy_!"

"I am…not…"

"Breathe, young man, breathe -"

"Cid…?"

"You are beginning to suffer from cardiac arrest; what a bother - hang on, Vayne, you shan’t be dying today, nethicite or no."

The world was made of white, piercing light, and a noise that would not let him sleep.

"Larsa..?"

"Sit _down_ and rest your damned head, Lord - no, _no_ , Larsa will be well tended to - _stop moving, you fool_!"

The world gnarled and contorted, transfixed in time, in a moment of breath around a very dull word.

Vayne’s tongue was too thick, too tired to respond.

The good Doctor, however, was a proud parent, prattling over his delirious newborn who struggled to form words, to move, to try not to choke to death on his own vomit.

Somewhere, he heard it was to be expected, and at least for a temporary moment, Vayne would forget his incident. Until he slept.

In dreams, connected to such an unbound force, such an overload of _being_ and energy, the mind tended to crack. Led to delusions of grandeur, led to the body feasting upon itself. A beautiful, entrancing death sentence.

Cid did not envy the headache, either. He busied himself, however, taking notes upon a crisp, white pad, the omnipresent shadows warbling with color.

It was patient eternally. Watching flesh fight its own blood. Life and Chaos, merged upon a single point. No limit.

This was the fear of the Mist-blood. The hume resisted its call even as it plunged him towards a cavernous drop.

So much accomplished in six short years.


End file.
